RadioMaster TX16S VS Jumper T16 Pro v2

Lately there have been some remarkable shifts going on in OpenTX transmitter land. While FrSky have been a long time dominant player and the top of mind option in the (OpenTX) transmitter market, things are changing lately with the arrival of some serious competition for FrSky like the Jumper T16 Pro V2. And that’s not all. While still being a young new entrant to the market, the Jumper T16 Pro V2 faces some heavily upcoming competition itself from a higly similar looking other new entrant: the RadioMaster TX16S. So what should you buy? Should you go for the Jumper T16 Pro v2 or the not yet released RadioMaster Tx16S? In this post, we will take a brief look at the RadioMaster Tx16S VS Jumper T16 Pro V2. There are only renders and technical specs available of the RadioMaster Tx16S yet.

Both tranmitters can be found on the official website of the manufacturers:

• Jumper T16 Pro V2 (Already released)
• RadioMaster TX16S (Release date: 30/04/2020)

APPEARANCE

The RadioMaster TX16S and the Jumper T16 Pro V2 share most of their looks. Both feature a 4.3 inch 480*272 color screen, 8 toggle switches (4 on the front and 4 on the top), 2 front placed potmeters, 6 front based “quick buttons” and sliders on the side. At a glance, there isn’t much difference to see visually despite the color of the facings. The layout of all the switches and buttons is pretty much the same. Dimensions and weights are also almost the same. On the outside, both transmitters looks to be exactly the same.

When staring longer at both transmitters, you’ll notice some subtle differences. The RadioMaster features 4 menu buttons and different HALL gimballs than the Jumper. To us, the gimballs of the TX16S looks visually more attractive. But since there are only renders available yet, it remains an educated guess how the production models will look eventually.

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ARE THESE EVEN DIFFERENT TRANSMITTERS?

Based on visuals only, you could almost argue that there isn’t any difference between the Jumper T16 Pro V2 and the RadioMaster TX16S. How is it possible that both transmitters looks to be the same? Are they even different? A brief history will clear some things up.

HobbyPorter, manufacturer of the RadioMaster TX16s and owner of the brand, once worked together with Jumper on the T16. Eventually, they decided to go apart and improve on the drawings that they already made together. As a consequence, both transmitters share much aspects, but we are told that under the hood they will differ! Also, there are some differences that we can see already, without the TX16S being official released yet. We put all the main features of both the Jumper T16 Pro V2 and the RadioMaster TX16S in a table. Notable technical differences are highlited in bold.

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MOST IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES

Looking at our table above, you can see some of the main differences based on technical data. We will tell you some more about these differences between the RadioMaster TX16S and the Jumper T16 Pro V2

Gimballs

The gimballs of both transmitters are HALL sensor gimballs. HALL sensor gimballs are superior to potmeter based gimballs in terms of wear and tear. It’s great to see that both the Jumper and Radiomaster have an affordable version of their popular transmitters with HALL gimballs. Differences occur in the gimballs used and in optical differences.

According to RadioMaster, the TX16s features full size HALL sensor gimballs. With full size, we’re referring to the amount of throw the gimballs have. Since the TX16s isn’t released official yet, we can’t measure the throw at the moment so we can’t conclude if the throw is really different than the amount of throw from the Jumper.

Optical, the RadioMaster TX16s have really nice looking aluminium face plates. The Jumper T16 Pro V2 lacks those. In our opinion, the aluminium face plates look really attractive.

Battery Compartment

The battery compartment of the RadioMaster TX16S is more spacious than the battery compartment of the Jumper T16 Pro V2, making some bigger battery packs possible. This is beneficial, since the 4.3″ color screen consumes more power than traditional screens.

Both transmitters can be fitted with 2x 18650 battery, giving you at maximum about 3500 mAh of battery capacity. In the RadioMaster, you can fit a somewhat larger pack. RadioMaster told us that a 21700 2s 7.4V 5000 mAh pack will be available for the TX16S.

External UART

The Jumper doesn’t have any external UART (Universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter) ports. If you don’t know what this is, this point might be not that important to you. A brief explanation is that the UARTS are some kind of external ports that you can hook up other things to, somewhat like USB for your pc.

The RadioMaster features 2 external UARTS. Those ports can be used for all kinds of geeky stuff in the future, like e.g. adding bluetooth, relaying telemetry data to a ground station, adding external devices, etc. At the time of writing there isn’t support in OpenTX yet for the UART ports, but we’re sure it will be in the future! If you are into long range flying or lots of DIY, those two external UART ports can be really great!

Touch Panel ready

The RadioMaster is touch panel ready. We are not sure about the Jumper but will ask them and hope to get an answer.

This means that you can buy a touch panel in the future and swap it with the current non touch panel. It will give touch capabilities to your transmitter. OpenTX doesn’t support it yet, but the developpers are busy incorporating touch screens to their software.

Foldable handle

The Jumper T16 Pro V2 comes with a foldable handle. This is really nice, since you can fold the handle and store it more easily. Before the V2 model, the Jumper was supplied with a really chunky handle.

The RadioMaster TX16s comes, according to current details, with a non foldable handle. We’re pretty sure that there will be a foldable handle available that you can easily swap with the stock one.

Menu buttons

The RadioMaster incorporates 4 menu button’s, while the Jumper gots 3 menu buttons. The extra button is used for page forward and page backward while browsing the menu’s. To us, the extra button is pretty useless.

Removable antenna

Removable antenna
The Jumper has a removable antenna, while the RadioMaster lacks a removable antenna. When you are interested in changing antenna’s to e.g. higher gain antenna’s this can ben an interesting feature.

External micro sd slot

On the Jumper T16 Pro v2, the sd card is inside the battery compartment. On the RadioMaster TX16S, the sd card slot is moved to the bottom provinding easier access. With normal use however, there’s no need to take the sd card out of the transmitter often.

Price

The RadioMaster TX16S is advertised cheaper than the Jumper T16 Pro V2.

SO, SHOULD YOU CONSIDER THE RADIOMASTER TX16S OR JUMPER T16 PRO V2?

Well, this is – especially at this moment – hard to tell. Theoretically there are some points making the RadioMaster the better choice. The 2 external UARTS, the bigger battery compartment, the price, the option for a touch screen and the great looking full throw gimballs are really attractive.

At the same time, we must remind ourselves to the fact that the RadioMaster TX16S is not released yet, while the Jumper T16 Pro V2 is. We can’t say yet with confident how the quality of the RadioMaster is, nor we can conclude how the gimballs feel.

Also, let’s not forget that the Jumper T16 transmitters are really great reviewed already all over the internet. The minor added benefits of the RadioMaster TX16S will not be usefull to everyone. For those, the T16 Pro V2 will still be a great option.

As soon as we have the production model in our hands – this will be in the first week of may – we will write a detailed review!